Taste of Sugar
by Lady Ryuki
Summary: Harry is given the taste of the sweetest drug of all, and it's not sugar.


Title: Taste of Sugar

Pairing: H/D

Rating: PG-13 (but for nothing shippy)

Genre: Horror

I've been going through a serious "asylum" fanfic phase, where I've been lapping up stories where someone goes/is crazy. It provides the most interesting writing styles.

Notables I loved are the Hermione scene in "The Shadow of His Wings" (Mirabella) and "Famous Last Words" (don't remember the author). Now I've gotten around to writing one of my own. If you have any asylum fanfictions you know of, please send me links, or at least titles

A/N: I typed the story in an email, so if the formats weird that's why. I tried to fix the majority of it but…

You have no idea how long it took to get this up, because I am so incompetent when it comes to HTML format.

Title: Taste of Sugar

Author: Lady Ryuki

Pairing: H/D, general Harry-ness

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Freedom

The day they released him into the Death Eater camp, Harry discovered how bland the taste of sugar was. He had always adored sweets as a child, begged his aunt and uncle for just a fraction of the chocolate they lavished upon their own son, licked feverishly at the empty wrappers his cousin left behind, wanting the smell to materialize into taste. The wizarding world had allowed him access to a mountain of new candies, all available to touch, to consume. He had laughed with his classmates and thought himself happy.

But sugar was a pale substance that only glittered in places where sunlight in an open field was considered a commonplace. When the scared nurses brought the Portkey forward and activated it on the table between him and them, Harry seized it with all the desperation of a child-addict stickily fingering his only know drug. The nurses jumped back, even though the magical barrier separating them was impassible from his side. He did not care. He was jerking and spinning away on the most dangerous, most exhilarating high he had ever experienced.

The Portkey was his wand, the drug his freedom.

He had been authorized to use unforgivable curses, they had told him. Authorization was not needed any more, but the ministry did its best to give the appearance of upholding arcane laws. If the Death Eaters were destroyed, it would not matter if the victor used the curses, they would be rewarded regardless. It was the way the public wanted it. They wanted a hero to glorify, since their previous one was no longer in a position to be worshiped. It was difficult to justify the worship of a man locked in an asylum. They had traded him his cape for a straightjacket.

He arrived to silence, to darkness, to the sweet air filled with a million possibilities. It was no longer a choice between should I stare at the wall, or the ceiling, it was should I run, yell, curse, or plan in secrecy. The options filled his head with a pleasant buzz. He selected his favorite from the mass and tasted it. He let it roll over his tongue and drip out of the corner of his mouth.

"Avada Kedavra."

His voice was raspy with a slight hissing quality to it. He only spoke Parseltongue in his cell when he tried to urge the door to converse properly with him. It was the language he had remembered far after English had filtered out of his mind. He smiled as the sound of the words fell from his lips. It tasted like peppermint.

The lazy green light from his wand slid to the ground, where, perhaps, a small inconsequential form met its end. Harry expected it had not been the end it had planned, but then it rarely was.

Harry had been sent here as a last hope. Not even a hope, for no one expected a positive result. The ward was crowded and Harry had always told them how he had wanted to die fighting, like his father. The nurses had heard a lot about his father. There were listening spells on the cell walls for security and Harry had begun his stay as a very talkative patient.

The light, within so much darkness, must have been what alerted the guard. Or perhaps Harry actively sought the man out. He could not recall. His mind had long ago ceased to work in a calm linear manner. The shortest distance between two points had many breaks in it.

The pale face lit by the wand light looked sad and scared and resolved. Harry had the mental image of a teaspoon of liquid emotions overflowing into his hand. Harry smiled. Images were the one aspect of the asylum he had liked. They often came in colorful variations.

"I thought you were locked up." The voice held no curiosity, merely a sadness of faint days hardly remembered but for the emotions they recalled.

Released, Harry hissed in Parseltongue before he could remember that other language he once knew. "Free."

"What are you expecting to win here?"

"Freedom." He could not remember any other English word.

"Even the Dark Lord wouldn't take you now." Remorse this time. Memories of when the age, the conditions, had been different. The Dark Lord wasn't the subject of that statement anymore.

"Do not play games with a madman."

The phrase was more of a memory than an active formation of words. Harry would laugh as the nurses recoiled on their side of the wards. They would never play games with Harry.

The lit figure looked sadly on, but did not say anything.

"Freedom," Harry repeated plainly. He could not remember the English words. Parseltongue felt so much more natural. I have been given the taste and the dealer has me. I want freedom. Ties bind me. I must gnaw through them. I must be free.

"I played a game with a madman once." The voice was distant and the lit figure was no longer making eye contact. He did not understand Parseltongue.

The words rose through Harry like a well-memorized verse of poetry.

"One more time, then, Draco my love."

A flicker of something crossed the lit figure's eyes, something the wizards who had sent Harry had all given up years ago. The emotion slowed his reflexes enough to be unable to react in time.

The wand was already raised, the words already spoken, the light already flashing through the air.

Harry bent over the limp figure, lifted it into his lap.

"Sectumsempra," he muttered, and as the pale skin was sliced open and tinted crimson, Harry's mind played for him images of mirrors and water and tears. He raised the bleeding face to his mouth and slowly, deliberately licked it clean. He was a junkie getting his fix. The blood did not seem salty to Harry. As he peeled back the wound for more, he could only describe it as the sweetest liquid he had ever tasted.

fin


End file.
